


Midterm Flu

by whouffaldigarbage



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:04:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6230596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whouffaldigarbage/pseuds/whouffaldigarbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>strikingtwleves prompted me for a Whouffaldi sick fic in which Clara has the flu. Fluff ensues. Here you go!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midterm Flu

Clara wasn’t accustomed to feeling like death. She didn’t realize it would entail a perpetually running nose that was paradoxically stuffy at the same time. She wasn’t aware it would have her feeling feverish one moment and frozen to the bone the next. Clara Oswald had the flu, there was no doubt about it, and the rather macabre part of her mind thought she was dying. She meditated on the idea for a time before she was distracted by an eruption of sneezes.

Unfortunately for death, Clara had too much to do. It was midterm week at Coal Hill, and Clara had to administer five different tests between today and tomorrow. She couldn’t miss school, it was too short notice to hire a substitute, and the last time she took off of school the dean sent her a rather flippant email that seemed to imply she hadn’t been ill at all, although she had been. Despite that scathing incident three and a half years ago, Clara had maintained a perfect attendance record, and intended to keep it that way. Flu or not—she was going in.

It would be an overstatement indeed to call her exit from the bed a roll. It was more of a flopping, tangled and dizzy drop, and Clara found herself on all fours beside her bed, limbs tangled in the bedclothes and her head pounding something terrible. She braced herself and waited for the room to stop spinning, before slowly righting herself with the help of the bed and carefully rising to a swaying standing position. She blinked rapidly, hoping to dispel the woozy feeling creeping through her veins and vision, and it seemed to help slightly. With the support of the wall, she maneuvered her way to the bathroom and groped about for the light switch. When it clicked on she was blinded by the bright light and had to squint her eyes shut as her head started to ache painfully. She turned the light off and decided to shower in the dark. The idea had seemed alright at the time, but Clara soon discovered how difficult it really was, and the whole ordeal turned into an exhausting activity.

Clara felt worse after the shower, if that were even possible. She made her way out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, hair dripping wet around her shoulders, and started back towards her room to change. Had her ears not been clogged, she might have heard the familiar and comforting scraping-whirring noise that always announced the Doctor’s arrival in her living room. However, she didn’t hear him. She didn’t know the Doctor was now peering around her apartment for her. If she had, she would have put on clothes.

Instead, the Doctor walked in on Clara face down on the bed where she had laid to rest for a moment, towel wrapped haphazardly around her covering the bare necessities. Incidentally, her position seemed to worry the Doctor and sent his mind down a dozen catastrophic paths.

“Clara? Clara!” his voice was clipped with worry and reached her through her groggy state. She felt his hand on her back atop the towel where he felt for her breathing. Clara turned her head with a light groan and blinked in the dim light of the room until his face became clear. He was crouching beside the bed, eyes now meeting hers filled with relief. “Now’s not the time for a nap, you’ll catch a cold like that.”

“Mmph.” She grumbled in protest as she turned her head back so it was face down into the bed.

“You’re wet? Why are you wet? Is it raining?”

She didn’t have the energy to explain to him for the seventh time that she showered every day like most normal people did, and that it was nothing unusual, bizarre, or absurd, as he was so keen to call it. “Have to school.”

He sat back on his heels and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, sounds like you could use a bit of school talking like that.”

Clara tried lifting herself up onto her elbows keeping one hand on the towel round her chest. The small task proved so difficult she felt herself break out in a light sweat. Panting, she slowly rolled until she was sitting on the side of the bed facing him, and remained there holding her head until the room righted itself.

“Clara, are you alright? You seem a bit…broken.”

“Sick. I’ll be fine. I have to go to school.”

Suddenly his face was less than a foot from hers, peering up at her with concern and interest. His large blue eyes were like galaxies staring up at her. She felt the cold light touch of his fingers on her neck just beneath her jawline to feel for her pulse, and the back of his hand against her forehead to test for fever. She closed her eyes against the wonderful sensation, and couldn’t help the small hum that escaped her at the feeling of his cool touch against her burning skin. She leaned into his touch ever so slightly and delighted in the coldness and comfort it brought.

“No.” he announced simply after removing his hand.

She opened her eyes and blinked at him. “No?”

“No school. You’ve a fever of 104.2, and your pulse is below normal.”

“Pulses are different for different people.”

“Correct, but it’s currently below average for you.”

“You know my resting pulse?”

His face twisted up and his fingers twiddled in the air as he searched for the proper response. “I’m a Doctor, it’s what I do. Pulses. People. It’s a thing.”

Clara shook her head slowly. “I can’t miss school.” She started to push herself off of the bed and the Doctor’s hands were suddenly firmly on her shoulders keeping her down. “Doctor,”

He cocked an eyebrow at her so his face was half-frown, half-sass. “It is my medical opinion that you stay home today.”

“You’re not a real doctor,”

He huffed at her. “Why are you getting hung up on details? Back into bed with you.”

Clara shoved his hands off of her shoulders as he tried to coax her back, and gave him a warning look. It was the look he defined as ‘head-strong serious-eyes’. He fell back on his heels with a rather put-out expression on his face. “I am going to school.”

The Doctor rolled backwards until he was lying flat on his back staring up at the ceiling in defeat. “Fine. And when you get hypothermia and die I’ll just be here to say I told you so.” He paused and rocked up on his elbows to look at her, suddenly serious. “But do let me know if you die and become a ghost so I might go on ghost adventures with you and have you frighten people when my eyebrows aren’t up for the task.”

Clara managed to heave herself off of the bed and stumbled to the wardrobe. She rifled through the drawers and found the necessities; bra, underpants, loose slacks, t-shirt with a peter pan collar. “I’m changing, Doctor.”

“Yes and?”

“Remember the time you walked in that woman’s dressing room by accident?”

“…Yes.”

“Then leave or shut your eyes or something.”

“I’m not about to leave you here alone; in your state you’ll fall and crack your head open on the dresser or strangle yourself with your pants or faint and—”

“That’s your catastrophic thinking again. We’ve talked about this. Use your techniques.”

He grumbled something incoherent and defeatist before she heard him move slightly. She turned and saw him remain lying on the floor where he had been with his eyes in the crook of his elbow so he couldn’t see anything. Clara really didn’t have the energy to tell him to leave, or leave herself to change in private, so she let the towel fall and pulled on each article with difficulty, and only nearly fell once.

“Is this how long it takes you to get ready every morning? The day’s half gone by now.”

She rolled her eyes as she attempted to find the hole in the t-shirt where her head went through. “I’m decent enough now.” She heard him shift and knew he’d taken the arm off of his eyes. Clara heard him, but didn’t see him. She was currently stuck in her shirt. The simple pull-on shtick she did every morning seemed to have found fault with her that day. Her arms were tangled above her head in the shirt, one sticking out of the wrong hole, and the shirt was exposing her entire torso. She struggled a bit more desperately, having told him she was dressed too soon and now stuck in this predicament. In a moment, she felt his hands on her arms, helping her put the shirt on, and he pulled it down over her head so it was on properly. He must have traversed the length of the room in less than a second to get to her so quickly. Clara squinted up at him through her wet hair and didn’t even have the energy to blush at the state he’d just seen her in. “Thank you.”

He looked down at her with those large eyes, “Now will you go to bed?”

She moved past him, his arm suddenly at her side for support when she stumbled, which she took gladly. “Ask me again and I’ll smack you so hard you’ll regenerate.”

“Even if you were functioning normally you couldn’t possibly hit me with the force required to—” he was cut short by the look she shot him that made him swallow the rest of his sentence. He sighed; there was no arguing with her when she gave him that look. “What can I do?”

“Just help me to the bathroom.” She managed, still gripping his arm for support. Slowly the two of them went their way thus, him matching her pace and guiding her gently but firmly so she wouldn’t fall. Clara was beginning to wonder if he were right, and that she had no business going to school, let alone leaving the apartment. But she didn’t have a choice—she had to administer the midterms. There was no way round it.

They arrived in the bathroom and he switched the light on. It only blinded her for a moment, and he sat her down atop the closed toilet seat when she requested a break. She was panting from the exertion and she could feel her body shivering in a cold sweat. Clara felt like death. She couldn’t help it when she felt a frustrated tear fall down her face at her condition and the helplessness she felt.

“What are you doing now? Leaking?”

She turned her head away and brushed the tear aside, but it was too late, she felt more brimming in her eyes. “I’m fine.” She managed, but her voice cracked and shook.

“Clara—”

“I’m fine!”

“Clara, my Clara,” he crouched before her again so he was looking into her teary eyes, his hands rested on her knees delicately. Within his face she saw such concern and care, and it only made her have to fight harder to hold back the tears. She wasn’t the emotional type—she was sick and weak and tired and mad with fever. “What is so important? Why can’t you just stay in bed today? What are you killing yourself for?”

Well when he put it like that she felt rather foolish. She leaned forward and held her head in her hands, “Midterms!” she exclaimed hopelessly. “I have to give my classes their tests.”

“Is that all?”

She looked up at him and was taken aback by their close proximity. When she’d leaned forward she didn’t realize how close they’d become. She could count his eyelashes if she had a mind to. “They’re important. I have to administer them.”

“No, they just have to be administered.”

“Yes, by me, a member of faculty.”

The corner of his mouth twitched into a half smile. “Faculty you say?”

She did not like the mischievous tone in his voice one bit. “No.” Clara insisted firmly when she began to realize what he was implying.

“I think a caretaker would count as faculty.”

“No.”

“I still have my disguise.”

“No.”

“I’ll have to find another broom I suppose. I grew attached to the last one but I lost it in space.”

“No.”

His eyes twinkled impishly. “Oh Clara yes.”

“Doctor no!”

He stood up quickly and smiled down at her. “Mr. Smith is going back to Coal Hill School!”

Clara didn’t have the energy to stop him. She didn’t have the ability to protest any further. She was exhausted. She merely held her head in her hands and wished the world would go away for a bit. She thought his idea was mad, but the alternative of managing to go into school seemed worse indeed, given her current state. She just hoped he would behave himself, and she couldn’t believe the next words out of her mouth, “Alright. Go to Coal Hill. Give the students their exams. They’re all on my desk.”

“Are they hard exams?”

“They’re midterms.”

“You keep saying that like I know what that means. I don’t know what that means. They’re just exams, yes?”

“They’re comprehensive exams given in the middle of each semester to test the students on what they’ve learned.”

“Shouldn’t you know what they’ve learned? You wrote the syllabus. I saw you do it.”

Clara sighed. “It’ll be simpler if I just go myself—”

His hands flapped about in front of her in a flustered ‘stay where you are’ gesture. “No, you walking petri dish, stay right there. Mister Doctor John Smith of Coal Hill School will handle this.”

She groaned. He barely passed as a normal person when she was present, how was he going to manage without her there to monitor his behavior? “This has got to be the worse idea in the history of the universe.”

He held up a finger. “Wrong. I could give you a numerical list of all of the billions of wrong ideas that have taken place in this universe and this is rather low on the proverbial totem pole. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a class to teach.”

Clara called after him as he strolled from the bathroom. “No, no you will not be teaching anyone—you are administering examinations—oh for godsake.” She sighed when she heard his TARDIS door snap shut and the familiar whirring sound as it disappeared. “Could you not take the tube like a normal bloke at least?” she grumbled sarcastically to herself as she started her slow way back to her bedroom. “Or call a cab—oh but pay with what money? He doesn’t have money, because he has no use for money, because he’s not a human. And now the alien man is going to be alone with a room of my students.”

Clara made her way back to her bedroom and flopped down on the bed, utterly exhausted. Her bones and muscles ached. Her head throbbed. She was equal parts burning hot and frozen with chills. She lay there for she knew not how long, and was only roused when the Doctor quietly cleared his throat beside her. She frowned. Had the entire school day passed so quickly? She must not have heard his TARDIS return. She shifted slightly to look up at him. He was standing beside her bed with a glass of water and a mug of hot tea waiting expectantly. She smiled weakly at him before her eyes found the clock beside her bed. Only five minutes had elapsed. Panic rippled through her. “Doctor—what about school, you were supposed to—”

“Time traveler.” He said simply before proffering both the glass of water and mug of tea at her. 

“But space-time continuums or…something.” She protested, her head pounding and muddling her thoughts. She squinted through the pain at him.

He shrugged. “I finished school and now I’m here. My time stream isn’t crossing with itself. I know I don’t come back here during the school day because I was there the whole time. Now take your liquids, that’s supposed to help, I read a thing.”

Clara tried shifting into a sitting position but the effort was too demanding. Before she knew it, the Doctor had placed both beverages on her bedside table and his arms were around her to help her move. She held onto him and even through her stuffy nose she took in the familiar scent of him, like sandalwood and space dust and books. 

Between the two of them, Clara ended up propped up against her headboard in a slouching sitting position. The Doctor had placed a pillow behind her back. She realized she was still holding on to him after she’d gotten settled. He didn’t seem to mind, and reached to the bedside table to take the glass of water and hand it to her. She released his arm and took the glass with shaking fingers and brought it to her lips to drink deeply. When she’d finished, he took the glass from her and placed it back on the table. She still had her other hand around his back, holding him close to her. His presence was comforting to her, and his proximity made her feel a little better, as though her illness wasn’t as bad as it had been only a minute ago. “You gave the exams?”

“Yes, and they were too easy, if I say so myself.”

Clara didn’t want clarification of that statement. She only sighed.

“So Clara Oswald,” the Doctor smiled at her, “I will be your doctor for the day. What can I do for you?”


End file.
